Predatory Peace: Fiscal Fragmentation and Coercive Statebuilding in South Sudan and Beyond
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This article analyses how peace agreements have reconfigured, rather than dismantled, predatory fiscal rule in South Sudan. Drawing on 210 interviews, archival sources, and a peace agreements dataset, it shows how elite pacts redistribute rents in ways that stabilise ruling coalitions while legitimising coercion. I introduce the concept of predatory peace to capture how agreements entrench fiscal predation under the guise of statebuilding and strategic fiscal fragmentation to describe how opaque and overlapping revenue systems sustain authority and diffuse accountability. By foregrounding South Sudan’s revenue complex, the article shows how peacebuilding frameworks embed coercion as durable rule across conflict-affected countries.
Dr Matthew Sterling Benson is a social and economic historian of Africa in the Conflict and Civicness Research Group (CCRG) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he is Research Fellow and Sudans Research Director, leading research on both Sudan and South Sudan and affiliate staff in LSE’s Department of Economic History. Matthew’s research interests include the changing nature of war, state and armed group finance, and state formation in the 21st century. Matthew is currently writing a book manuscript examining the history of revenue and different forms of often coercive rule in both Sudans. He holds a PhD in History and an MA in Social and Economic History from Durham University, an MA in Governance and Development from the IDS at Sussex, and a BA in International Relations from Tufts University.
Publisher: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
Date: December 2025
Citation: Benson, M. S. (2025). Predatory Peace: Fiscal Fragmentation and Coercive Statebuilding in South Sudan and Beyond. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2025.2576462
